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Friday, August 05, 2011

Zoo Days and Shadows

I took part of my brood to the Zoo earlier in the week, on a sunny but cool morning that seemed well suited for animals, and humans, too.

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From L to R: daughter, g'son in stroller, me, granddaughters

My favorite three-year-old

Sister's Shadow Heart

I'm always on the lookout for pattern and repetition and no where did I find it so interesting as on the zebras and the giraffes. Early morning means lots of interesting shadows in the habitat.

I am working in my studio, painting with oils and having great fun, but I have nothing to show you yet. My techniques need lots of work. Thanks to all the rain and cloudy days of spring and early summer my garden is at its prime, at a time when its usually burning up. I'm thankful for the conditions that makes gardening in the Pacific Northwest such a rewardingh lifestyle, even though the grayness sometimes sits heavy on my emotions. Still, I would not trade for long spells of 100+ degrees of heat. It's looking like we may not need our AC this summer. Suits me.

If you want to look at some interesting art have a peek at these blogs and websites from a few Oregon artists...

looks like a wonderful outing with the family-- I have a little grandson too.. he is 2 and a half years old.. they are so cute at that age. And you are right-- the weather is perfect right now.. sunny but not too hot.. enjoy!

Bright Line Eating January BootCamp

http://bit.ly/2j5gYvW

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EVERY DAY

Work doggedly, one thing after the other. Begin work early, finish many things each day.Work on what comes to hand, what demands attention. Have rough plans - work them daily.Rest from the work.(source unknown)

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Abstracting Nature

“I want to reduce what I see to basic forms that still retain an unmistakable connection to my original subject.” Jim Morgan

15 minutes of journaling can solve almost any problem.

"Listen, it's really pretty simple. If there's a thing, a scene, maybe, an image that you want to see real bad, that you need to see but it doesn't exist in the world around you, at least not in the form that you envision, then you create it so that you can look at it and have it around, or show it to other people who wouldn't have imagined it because they perceive reality in a more narrow, predictable way. And that's it. That's all an artistdoes." Tom Robbins

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If you can't do a good painting do a big one.If you can't do a big one do lots of small ones.Just keep working.(Royal Nebeker)

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.